The Who To Tour North America,Play ‘Quadrophenia’ in Full, And Skip The Pacific Northwest

The Who will kick off a 37-date tour on November 1st in which they’ll perform their 1973 double album Quadrophenia in its entirety, in addition to a handful of hits. The U.K. band’s surviving members – Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey – announced their first tour in four years during a digital press conference held this afternoon (July 18). Full tour dates below.

“We’ve gone off in different directions, and we’ve really struggled with what to do this time,” Townshend said in the lengthy video conference. “Quadrophenia was something we felt we could get together on. We were anxious to work together before we dropped dead.”

As for the members of The Who that have already passed (bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon), The Who have absolutely no plans of going the hologram route, as first debuted with deceased rapper Tupac’s “performance” at the Coachella music festival this spring.

“We thought about holograms, but everyone’s doing it right now,” Daltrey said. “I wanted to do it a few years ago before got popular. We were very good on gimmicks in the ’70s, but I think we can leave that alone.”

The band that famously declared “I hope I die before I get old” had quite frank discussions of their health and capabilities during the press conference. Daltrey said he wasn’t sure “how many more years [he] might be able to sing these songs.”

The Who’s second rock opera, Quadrophenia lends itself to an elaborate stage production – one the band created previously. On The Who’s 1996-1997 tour, they brought Quadrophenia to life with a full band of strings, brass and vocalists, as well as special guest stars like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, Gary Glitter and Billy Idol portraying characters off the album during various performances. Daltrey doesn’t think backing vocalists will be necessary this time around, and the group plans to make this Quadrophenia tour different from their last.

When asked if they would ever consider a complicated stage production like Roger Waters’ current tour of The Wall, Townshend said, “I would, he [Daltrey] wouldn’t.” Townshend added, “As the composer [of Quadrophenia], I like the idea of it being as grand as possible.”

The tour’s second leg ends February 26th in Providence, RI, but Daltrey and Townshend said that they have hopes of taking it worldwide in the future – just no music festivals, a point the always outspoken Townshend was adamant about.

The outing will be the Who’s first since the 2008-2009’s “greatest hits” tour. Daltrey and Townshend will reunite with drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son), guitarist Simon Townshend (Pete’s son) and bassist Pino Palladino as their band, among other players. As for the “classic hits” portion of this forthcoming tour, Daltrey mused, “to kiss them goodnight, what better than ‘Baba O’Riley and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’?”

Tickets for The Who’s Quadrophenia Tour go on sale for fan club members this Friday (July 20) at 10 AM; general on-sales kick off July 27 at 10 AM.

The Who’s celebration of Quadrophenia kicks off this month with the debut of the previously-announced documentary The Who: Quadrophenia – Can You See The Real Me? The rock doc looks at the revisits the album’s making, and will screen for one night only on July 24th in theaters nationwide. Daltrey and Townshend both said in today’s conference that they haven’t seen the film yet and are a bit nervous to do so.